Reno crash

[black duck]

Just got this off a plank sight I haunt (yeah I know, sad isn't it ), nothing to do with helicopters, but interesting stuff none the less.

* So here is the scoop I got over the weekend. Turns out one of the mechanics at the airport was on the ground team for one of the unlimited racers and had the spot in the pits right next to the lost plane. The ground team had a real time data feed from the airplane.
* Looks like the plane had a high speed flutter on the port elevator trim tab. The pilot reported a vibration.
* The trim tab came off in flight which caused the entire tail group to twist. There are trim tabs on both sides and the asymmetry caused a huge over load. Also high power settings require a lot of nose down trim to stay level, the loss of the trim tab could not be overcome by the pilot. The twist in the tail group made the tendency to nose up even greater and caused damage to the internal structure in the tail - looking at the pictures you will see the tail wheel is down and the gear doors are gone - stuff was coming apart in there.
* The twist and the loss of trim caused a near instantaneous 11G pull up - this probably incapacitated the 73 year old pilot and may even have broken the mounts on the pilot seat. Note you cannot see him in the cockpit. The 11G pull also caused a brief loss of engine power from low fuel pressure - the pump could not overcome 11G.
* After the 11G pull up the airplane unloaded in steep climb - with the G off the engine regained power.
* Without the pilot to overcome it the airplane torque rolled causing a split S into the ground.
The data showed that the airplane was pulling 105 inches on manifold pressure on impact. The "normal" race boost would be 60 to 70. So the airplane was going just under 500MPH when it hit so no fire just total disintegration

[Leethallee]

Sad to hear especially for the spectators that lost their life also.
Doesn't sound like the pilot suffered,

respect and thoughts to the families.

[rotors99]

yes sad to hear, condolences. BUT lets keep this a Rotory website. There are dozens of stiff-wing crashes & we could write about all of them but here is a Bladeslapper site for rotor heads not plankies. if this was a general website then fine but its not.

Keep it Rotory & keep it in the green

[Pegs]

rotors, its all aviation, and while you may not wish to read it if it concerns planks, plenty of others would find the above info very interesting. There are plenty of threads on here that have practically nothing to do with helicopters that none the less make good reading. Just because you don't want to read it, doesn't mean others don't.

Heck 11G's? 500MPH? As said above it was a sad outcome but those figures are still pretty amazing. Condolences to the people who where there that day, and their friends.

As a further note, helicopters have trim tabs too, so it is relevant in a round about sort of way, makes you stop and think, and that isn't a bad thing no matter what sort of flying it was.

[ROTOR WORK]

Black Duck, thanks for the update, All Aviation like Pegs said,
R W

[junque]

I'm Biaerosexual aswel , sad circumstances but interesting reading !

[Twistgrip]

yes sad to hear, condolences. BUT lets keep this a Rotory website

As has been said some of are dual rated (i am), so it good to get updates on events and circumstances not matter what form of aviation your commiting. so no i dont agree with you Rotors99 sorry . If it all helps us in some form or fashion and hopefully we can learn lessons from outcomes its all worthwhile in my opinion.

[black duck]

It's not the first time either, Gives you an idea of just how serious control surface flutter can be!

In 1998 during the Saturday Gold Heat, Race #5, “Voodoo” another highly modified, experimental P-51D piloted by Bob “Hurricane” Hanna of Yamaha motocross fame suffered an inflight failure of the left elevator trim tab at approximately 450 mph. This resulted in an instantaneous, abrupt pitch up of the aircraft of over 10 G’s (10 times the force of gravity) temporarily knocking out Hanna in a classic case of G Induced Loss of Consciousness (G-LOC-lack of blood/oxygen to the brain). Hanna was able to regain consciousness at 9,000 feet and safely recover the aircraft. The owner promptly put the aircraft up for sale. Ironically it was this same aircraft, “Voodoo”, that Leeward was trying to catch in the number two position during his last race on Friday.

In 1999 another very highly modified, almost unrecognizable P-51D, “Miss Ashley”, piloted by Gary Levitz of Levitz furniture fame literally vaporized before our very eyes in midair after high speed flutter of the elevator caused the tail to fail and subsequent breakup of the airframe at full race speed.

[hardcase]

If it all helps us in some form or fashion and hopefully we can learn lessons from outcomes its all worthwhile in my opinion. Gee what a statement what do we get to learn from this? you cant pull 11gs and expect to live, well thats relevent to a helicopter pilot I agree with RW

[Robinsondog]

Any helicopter pilot who is not interested in WWII or older fighters or that sort of bric a brac is got to be short of a dollar in the head. Of course we would be inetrested, I noticed in some of the press about this incident that the pilot was recorded as saying that they hadn't done any testing, but he reckoned it would be OK. Now it looks like by the little bit of flutter history relayed here which he must have been aware of that he may have severely been misguided by ego or idiocy. I wonder is that the same reason that they used to crash when chasing the VI's and ME 262's at full throttle down hill? I had an idea they were stressed to 12+ and 5-, must be something like that on the plus side or he would have torn the wings off and gone straight in.

[Eric Hunt]

Who said that this was not related to helicopters??

One of our own, Lachie Onslow, the head of Fleet Helicopters in Armidale, was over there flying a jet in the races.

[black duck]

The thing is, was this a long standing fault with the type or an age problem and if it is age, there is a direct relevance to "aging aircraft" which is flavour of the month at CASA at the moment. What has this to do with heli's I hear you cry??? Hands up who owns and or flies a machine over 15 years old or 3000 hours or has just had the guts flogged out of it?

[hardcase]

Make your point Blackduck

[black duck]

Make your point Blackduck

I did, I think Perhaps I didn't do it too well.The aging aircraft issue affects all aircraft, Helicopters included and I'm not just talking old aircraft here, check out the determination of what constitutes an "aging aircraft"on the CASA web site.There is going to be major changes made to maintenance requirements in the future (CASA is looking at a 2 year time frame) and the rest of the world is looking at what happens here. Australia will be first. What these changes will be and how they will affect the fleet ?? no one knows yet, but one thing you can garuntee there will be pain, it is just the amount that is to be determined. This is going to effect all aircraft to varying degrees. So in that respect, it does have a bit to do with helicopters.

[Twistgrip]

All hail Onslow!....hope they have plenty of Bacardi n soda